'A fallen brother?'
Gaël couldn't, or wouldn't, understand.
Before them, the slaughter raged on.
The man, no, the swordbrother, was carving through the Altered with the ease of a hand slicing water. His massive sword drew lethal arcs through the air, every motion stripped of excess. One creature tried to flank him on the left, cleaved in half. Another leapt with claws ready to tear, impaled, tossed to the ground like a rag doll. Thick carapaces of the abominations? Sliced open like overripe fruit. Their sheer size meant nothing against such precision.
The whole time, the man remained silent. No battle cry, no insult. Just the steady breath of a predator in his element.
"You can't decide whether to run or admire him, huh? That's normal."
The voice slithered into Gaël's mind like a slow-working poison.
"The first time you meet a Brother… it marks you. The first time you see what you could become…"
What you could become...?
Gaël shook his head, trying to drive the words away.
"A fallen Brother…" he repeated under his breath, as if tasting the bitterness of those words.
'But… how? How could Nyx know? After all, he is just a creature. A weasel, granted, an unusually large one, articulate, sure, but still a ball of fur, right?'
Well… muscular, imposing, and terrifying, but still, how could he know that he, Gaël, was walking the Path of the Severance?
"Don't overthink it, friend. The Blade... it leaves a mark. In your aura, yeah, but also in your eyes. I can feel it. And so would he, if you stepped into that circle."
Gaël swallowed hard, the metallic taste of blood and rain clinging to his tongue. His eyes returned to the warrior.
The ground, soaked in dark blood, had become a carpet of crushed corpses. And yet, the Altered kept coming, like an unending tide.
Until the final abomination was cut down, Gaël stood transfixed, watching alongside Nyx. At some point, he hadn't noticed when, Astraéa appeared at his side. Like him, she was drawn in by the carnage, rooted beside him, captivated by what she saw.
When silence finally reclaimed the clearing, the rain became a delicate veil, almost gentle compared to the violence that had just taken place. Yet the air remained heavy with the scent of iron and scorched flesh, and tendrils of steam rose from mutilated bodies, forming ghostly shapes in the mist.
Gaël stood still, as though waking from a fogged dream, slowly rising from a nightmare where each heartbeat was a thunderclap.
His fingers, clenched in Nyx's fur, refused to relax. His muscles screamed to stay alert, but his mind… was elsewhere. Lost somewhere between horror and the strange fascination that had gripped him the moment he saw that man at the heart of the massacre.
And now... The man was walking toward them.
Slowly.
Each step echoed over the blood-soaked, muddy ground, heavy, deliberate, like Death itself drawing near.
Gaël knew he should move. Step back. Do something. But he stood still. Fascinated. Spellbound.
It was like watching a predator close in, knowing full well that running wouldn't make a difference.
The man slid his massive sword into the sheath strapped across his back. The metal scraped against the leather with a rasp as sharp as the look he gave them. Up close, his features emerged beneath the rain:
A face weathered by time and battle, carved from stone. Eyes of cold steel, frozen, yet burning. Dark strands of wet hair clung to his square jaw. Every scar on his skin told of a battle won. Every wrinkle, an enemy fallen.
When he spoke, his voice rumbled low and coarse, like boulders grinding in a storm.
"What are kids doing out in this weather?"
His tone was almost mocking, yet carried that undeniable authority of someone who had nothing left to prove.
"This ain't a playground. Go home."
Silence answered him.
Neither Gaël nor Astraéa moved. Their breaths formed pale clouds in the chilled air. The man's words had cracked like orders… but their legs refused to obey. Too much tension.
The warrior raised an eyebrow. Then his eyes slid toward Astraéa. They locked.
Something, perhaps a memory, stirred behind that hardened gaze.
"Wait a second..." he muttered, squinting.
Water trickled down his wild beard as he tilted his head slightly.
"I know you."
Astraéa clenched her jaw but held his gaze.
"You're the old man's protégé, aren't you?" he finally said.
The words cracked like a whip.
To Gaël, the old man was just a name, a faint echo, but beside him, the girl reacted instantly.
Then the man surged forward, swift as a lightning strike.
Halfway there, he pivoted with a grace unnatural for someone his size. His hand drew the blade in a flawless arc, a sweep of steel and rain.
CLANG!
The tip slammed into the muddy ground with surgical precision. A blinding flash erupted before them, a beam of Lumen, pure and searing, crashed into the blade held like a wall. The impact vibrated the very air, tore up the soil, and burst the rain into a shimmering spray.
Gaël turned his head, eyes wide... There, just a few steps away, stood the white weasel, Eos, jaws still smoking. Tendrils of light curled from her fangs, her blue eyes ablaze with fierce resolve.
She no longer looked like a simple animal.
The warrior, unmoved, retrieved his blade with a rasp of stone. His smile widened, revealing teeth clenched between amusement and seriousness.
"Interesting," he rumbled, like distant thunder. "A Lumecra... or maybe even a Radiant."
He rested the flat of the sword on his shoulder, tilting his head slightly toward Astraéa.
"So the old man handed you that little light show, huh? Yeah... I know the type."
Then, his smile faded.
"But that…" His eyes darkened. "That won't be enough against me."
But before he could move again, another voice cut through the air, sharper, dragging, soaked in sarcasm.
"You really haven't noticed, have you, Fallen One?" Nyx taunted.
The black weasel, standing firm beside Gaël, spoke with mockery in his tone… but there was something darker pulsing beneath the words.
The warrior froze, and for the first time, surprise flashed across his face. A flicker of shock passed through his eyes for a heartbeat.
His aura shifted instantly.
Gone was the amused fighter, the swagger of a man certain of his dominance. What stood now was a bare blade. A guillotine, moments from falling.
His aura burst outward, a sharp, slicing pressure radiating from his body. Gaël felt the air thicken around him, the very atmosphere growing heavy, as if the world itself was about to split.
The man took position, knees bent, both hands on the hilt of his raised sword. The stance of a master. A promise of death.
His gaze hardened. No more smiles. No more games.
"Explain."
His voice was no louder than a whisper... But it thrummed with threat. An ultimatum.
Nyx narrowed his eyes, fangs bared in something like a predator's grin.
"I'm not talking about me."
A pause. Then, bluntly:
"I'm talking about the boy."
The warrior didn't move. Not a flicker of emotion crossed his face, not a twitch in his outstretched arms. But his gaze slid, slowly, toward Gaël.
"What do you mean?" the man asked, as if weighing each word.
Nyx stretched lazily, amused, but beneath the mockery, a new seriousness crept in.
"He's like you. Or rather... like you used to be."
The warrior remained frozen, his posture locked in a tension only years of battle could contain.
His aura, which had been as sharp as a drawn blade, flickered, just for a moment.
His fingers, clenched around the sword's hilt, trembled ever so slightly. Then he lowered the blade, as if the threat he'd sensed had vanished. Without a word, he turned.
His black cloak, heavy with rain, swept through the mud. No explanation. No glance back.
But just before disappearing into the shadowed forest, he spoke, his gravelled voice laced with a weight that sent a chill down Gaël's spine:
"Choose carefully what you cut, kid…"